County road budget down for 2014

About $750,000 less will be spent on county roads next year under a draft budget reviewed Thursday by the Lenawee County Road Commission board.

The budget is dropping from $12.7 million this year to $11.9 million next year as banked federal aid money is used up and less state aid is available for projects planned in 2014, said managing director Scott Merillat.

The major projects planned for next year are resurfacing 11 miles of Beecher Road from U.S. 127 near Hudson to M-34 east of Clayton for $1.3 million, replacing a bridge on Packard Road for $750,000 and paving nearly a mile of Bucholtz Highway from the village of Deerfield to Rodesiler Highway for $100,000.

Spending was boosted this year as the road commission used up federal aid money that had been held for several years. The county also received state aid to pay the match to federal aid for the repaving of Rogers Highway. That aid is not available to match federal money going to the Beecher Road project next year because it is not an all-season road, said Merillat.

County residents will see more sealcoating this year, Merillat said, due to $380,000 in federal aid that became available in addition to $450,000 already scheduled for sealcoating, Merillat said.

Revenue from the road commission’s main funding source is expected to inch up slightly next year, Merillat said. He estimated $6.77 million to come from the state’s fuel tax and vehicle license fees next year, a $34,000 increase from this year’s budget.

“I’m budgeting about a half percent increase from this year to next year,” Merillat said. State tax revenue for roads has been growing slightly the past several years after declining significantly for a decade.

“We’re still 10 percent less than we were seven or eight years ago,” Merillat said. The revenue expected next year is the same amount the road commission received 11 years ago, he said. The cost of equipment, fuel and tires, however, is much higher than a decade ago.

The slight growth in fuel tax revenue is used by some state legislators as an excuse not to address Michigan’s road-funding problem, said road commissioner Donald Isley.

Merillat said he is estimating revenue from townships and other local governments that contract for road work at $2.5 million, the same amount in this year’s budget. There is also no change in the $900,000 budgeted for snowplowing next year.